


The View from the Rushes

by eschscholzia



Category: Bride to the Sun — Lia Patterson
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, POV Minor Character, tortoises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eschscholzia/pseuds/eschscholzia
Summary: An homage to Lialathuveril's offline bookBride to the Sun. These are scenes and missing chapters from the book from the point of view of Shay's tortoise, Omid. (Don't call him her pet, he lived in the house first!) Even the slowest creatures can make a difference when life starts to move fast.A tale of dignity, determination, and gardens at dusk.





	1. Omid and the Mustard Greens

**Author's Note:**

> I read _Bride to the Sun_ in one weekend, quite ~~possibly~~ definitely to the phubbing of the people around me. The person (being?) I really felt sorry for in all the story was Omid, the turtle. I began to think about how he felt about his role in the events of this book, and this story was the result. [Here is a picture](https://arizonapoppy.tumblr.com/post/155305452701/my-head-canon-model-for-omid-the-tortoise-in-lia) of the red-footed tortoise that served as my inspiration.
> 
> Thanks to my betas, onlymton and D.

_Remember this,—that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life._  
        Marcus Aurelius— _Meditations._ IV. 32.

 

Omid was a very dignified tortoise. Even among tortoises, he moved slowly and deliberately. Perhaps it was a reaction to the time when he was a tiny hatchling, living on the edge of this very same pond in this very same garden. There had been a different family then. The Boy would play in the garden with his friends, wild creatures kicking up his gravel path, and shrieking and splashing on the edge of his pond. The Boy had found Hatchling-Omid while playing among the rushes and willows. When the Boy showed the tiny tortoise to his friends, they had dared The Boy to put the hatchling in his mouth.

The Boy picked him up from the rock where he had been sitting, pinching him on the either side of his shell. Legs wriggling, Hatchling-Omid was lifted in the air (most undignified!), and in he went. He shrank into his shell and fretted whether this was the end of his short life. Luckily the experience was soon over. Pond slime and mud did not make for an an appealing taste, and the Boy spat him back out, coughing. The other boys laughed and congratulated the Boy while Omid scurried back into the safety of the rushes.

Ever since, Omid had been wary of the People living in the house. Families came and went over the years, while he watched from his vantage point in the rushes and lily pads during the day. He preferred to come out in the evening, when it was cooler and he was disguised by shadows. If it was especially quiet, he lay amongst the gravel in the path, the retained heat warming his plastron.

The latest family was a poet and his daughter. The daughter was a fire mage, her footsteps leaving sparks of fire in her wake like silt stirred up in water. Omid hid from her; he didn’t trust magic. The Poet had wood magic, which was calmer, but still made him uneasy.

The Poet liked to sit on the bench in the courtyard in the evenings, reflecting. Omid watched from the safety of the rushes, barely keeping his eyes above water. After many such evenings, he crept forward through the forest of strands, their scratchy edges rubbing at him as he moved. Nervously, he put his feet on first of the stone tiles lining the water’s edge. They stared at each other for some time, neither one moving. Omid could feel the wood magic humming in the willows surrounding the pond; it tickled. Ticklish wood magic made his nose itch, and sneezing was undignified. Still silent, Omid turned and slipped back into the undergrowth to his favorite rocks.

Omid and the Poet continued their polite distance for a season. If the Daughter was there with the Poet, Omid usually stayed on his rock. Her fire magic was brilliantly warm, radiating through his shell. He worried he would cook in his carapace if he got too close.

One quiet evening, though, when Omid emerged, there was a small bowl sitting next to the Poet. Omid stretched his head out, opening his mouth and gulping the air. There was something fascinating about the smell coming from the bowl. Omid took another step toward the poet, mouth open.

The Poet froze, and Omid paused, still gulping the air. It was mustard greens and dandelion! Dandelion greens so rarely grew in in the courtyard. The gardeners were too careful to let it take hold.

“Would you like some?” asked the Poet, gently.

Omid stared at the bowl, unsure.

“Here, Honored Friend,” coaxed the Poet, slowly moving his hand to hold a posy of greens out to Omid.

Omid didn’t move. He was still very concerned about getting too close to the magic, but, oh, those greens smelled so good!

The Poet tipped his head to the side, thinking. “Would you like it better if I put them out for you?” he asked.

Omid blinked.

The Poet tossed them underhand in a gentle arc across the flagstones, landing but an inch or two from his outstretched head. Omid tapped the greens with his paw. His nails clicked on the stone. His eyes flicked up to the Poet and back down to the dandelions. It was too good a treat from his usual diet to give up. He tucked into the greens, enjoying the tang of the mustard on the roof of his mouth. Head bobbing, tongue licking his lips, he had finished half the small offering, when he felt a tickle in his nose. He should have known the wood magic would be trouble!

He sneezed.

Embarrassed, he collected the shreds of his dignity and turned and walked back into the rushes.

 


	2. Friends and Enemies

_ “One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered” — Michael J. Fox _

After that day, Omid was cautious about the Poet. He didn’t want a repeat of the Tickly Greens Incident, as he called it in his mind. He shuddered to remember it. For the first few evenings, the Poet waited patiently on the bench to see if Omid would come back out. He had his scroll on his lap, carefully writing the characters in their neat lines. The bowl was always at the Poet’s side, piled high with delicious-smelling things with scents that floated across the air to him. It didn’t matter. Omid wasn’t going near him for all the dandelions in Sikhand. 

They went on like this for a while. The bowl wasn’t always there. Some evenings the Poet’s friends would gather on the porch, laughing and talking. Other times the Poet’s Daughter made her way through her dance steps as the sun slipped behind the garden wall. When it was just the Poet by himself, he read in the garden or practiced his calligraphy, the bowl at his side. No matter the circumstances, Omid did not budge. Eventually, the evening light would fade, and the Poet would go back inside the house, leaving the pile of tantalizing greens poured out in a tumble at the foot of the bench. 

Throughout this, Omid sat on his rock, trying to ignore the faint tangy fragrance of the greens. He took to closing himself back up in his shell, reciting to himself over and over the words his aunt had told him as a hatchling: _no good would ever come of getting involved with mages_. His aunt knew about the dangers of getting tangled up in magic. Only when it was safe, would Omid leave his rock and nip at the greens. 

Finally, one day, Omid could take it no longer. Omid crept to the water’s edge, where he could look closer, but was still obscured by the rushes. Even at the water’s edge, there was a very faint buzzing of the Poet’s magic. Omid paused to scritch his shell against one clump of scouring rushes, trying to stifle the itch. As he crept forward, some pebbles clinked together and his foot slipped. The Poet’s head jerked up, and he squinted in Omid’s direction. Omid held his breath. 

After a moment, the Poet went back to his calligraphy. Omid grumbled in his mind, for after all, sneaking through his own pond was very undignified. It might even be called spying! Judging the scene safe, he took a step forward, and then another, until he was in the open on the flagstones. 

“Good evening, Honored Friend,” the Poet murmured, not looking up from his scroll. 

Omid blinked. Without moving the rest of his body, the Poet slowly and smoothly moved his hand to the bowl at his side. His fingers scrabbled in the bowl, and came away with a handful of dandelion greens. 

Omid paused on the flagstones. His mouth opened and shut. There were the dandelions, and he could smell the mustard, too. With a graceful motion, the Poet tossed the greens at Omid’s feet again. Omid looked down, and then up. He could feel the faint buzzing of the wood magic, but strangely, it was not as distracting this time. 

“I’ve been experimenting,” said the Poet to the scroll on his lap, keeping the fiction that they weren’t each brilliantly focused on the other. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Omid, who was cautiously poking the leaves with his beak. “Watch,” he said. With another deliberate and graceful slow arc, he waved his hand toward the overhanging willow tree. “ _Kulcad_ ,” he murmured, the inflection following his hand in an intense whisper. 

Omid drew a sharp breath; the buzzing tickle was gone! He sucked at his tongue. What could it mean?

“I warded my magic for you, Honored Friend,” the Poet explained, finally meeting Omid’s eyes.  A wave of relief swept over Omid, and he blinked with gratitude. Omid began nibbling at the salad, and the Poet went back to writing after watching him for a few minutes.

When the salad was gone, Omid looked up. The Poet paused, brush in the air. He gently laid it down on the bench next to him. His empty fingers reached into the bowl, and brought up a few slices of carrot. The Poet held it out to Omid.

“Would you like some of these?” he asked. "Will you take them from my hand, I wonder?"

Omid opened his mouth and gulped in the smell of the fresh carrots. They smelled so sweet! 

“Come here, Honored Friend,” coaxed the Poet. 

Omid tipped his head in surprise. He didn’t move. 

“Here, Honored Friend,” whispered the Poet, waving the carrots at him. 

Did the Poet think he was a pet, to eat from his hand? Did he think Omid would roll over to have his plastron scratched, like the calico cat from next door, who walked along the garden wall, taunting him, only to jump down and sprawl in  _ his _ patch of sun? “No, pets have no dignity,” Omid reminded himself. Omid was no-one’s pet. Omid blinked sadly. The carrots did smell rather nice. 

“Please, Honored Friend?” 

Omid didn’t budge. He had standards to maintain. 

“No? Well. Then,” sighed the Poet. He turned his cupped hand and let the carrots fall at his feet. Omid took a step forward and nipped at the bits of carrot, head bobbing. The Poet gathered up his scroll and the now-empty bowl, and turned to the path back to the house. He paused and looked over his shoulder at Omid, slowly finishing the evening treat, then continued inside. Omid didn’t look up until the Poet was gone. 

Omid and the Poet continued on like that for several seasons. If the weather was nice, the Poet would bring out his calligraphy and sit on the bench in the cool of the evening. Before he started to write, the Poet would carefully empty the contents of the bowl in a little heap at his feet. As soon as Omid emerged from the pond, he would carefully ward the magic while Omid ate. Omid never stayed for long; he was almost certain that it required no small effort for the Poet to ward his magic. 

The calico still visited their garden on sunny days, to Omid’s annoyance. Omid was very particular about his patch of sunlight, but apparently the Cat liked it too. Every morning, the gardeners carefully raked the gravel just so, and every afternoon, Omid would make his way to the center of the spiral, and settle down for a nap. He supposed his footprints disturbed the careful rings, but how else was he to get to the center? Walking in circles would make him dizzy, and who had ever seen a tortoise stumble? That would certainly be undignified. 

One afternoon, the Cat was there in _his_ spot of sun. Omid blinked with fury. The Cat rolled over on its side and smirked at him. Omid launched himself at the Cat, his front legs scrabbling furiously at the gravel, propelling him forward like the oars of the dragon boat crews on the river. 

The Cat watched him coming. She waited until just the last moment to spring out of the way. She still had a smirk on her face. Omid narrowed his eyes. He’d show her! He scrabbled forward again, and again she jumped out of his way. By now he had forced her halfway to the edge of the spiral. He ran at her a third time, and she leapt away. This time, though, she turned her tail to him, arching her back, taunting him. He gathered all his resolve and lunged at her, neck outstretched, snapping at her back leg. More startled than injured, and wounded mainly in pride, the Cat yelped and bounced from bench to table to tree branch to the top of the wall and was gone. Omid spat out a tiny fluff of white hair as he looked after her. The gravel was his again. He had not surrendered his dignity to the Cat.

That evening when the Poet arrived with his scroll and box of paintbrushes under one arm, and a bowl of Omid’s greens in the other hand, he found Omid still sitting in the gravel spiral. Startled to find Omid out in the open, he looked at the tortoise, and the bowl in his hand. A strange look crossed his face. He shook his head, and set them on the bench. With a sigh, he lowered himself to the ground. “I’m getting too old to sit scribe-style, like when I was a young apprentice,” he laughed, arranging his robes over his crossed legs, trying to get more comfortable on the flagstones. 

Omid held his breath. “This is certainly different,” he thought. The Poet turned and reached behind his back for the bowl on the bench. He held out a spray of clover to Omid.

“Honored Friend, would you like some clover?”

Omid had been having such a good day. He had vanquished the Cat, and he had his spot of sun back. Now the Poet was offering him a delicacy like clover! 

“Honored Friend, come and try some clover?” The Poet still held out the spray, his extended arm starting to shake a little. 

Omid considered the matter. If the Poet was willing to meet him at his level, they were equals. Omid knew he was not a pet, like the Cat. Surely the Poet realized that too. He left his spot on the gravel, and made his way across the flagstones. Tick, tack, tick, tick, tack, went his nails. The Poet had to brace his elbow on his knee by the time Omid made it across to where the Poet sat, but he never moved his hand. Omid gently grabbed at the clover, making sure not to nip the Poet’s fingers. “There was always dignity in sharing a meal between friends,” Omid concluded. He blinked with as much gratitude as he possibly could. 

From her spot in the shadows of the awning, the Poet’s Daughter paused her exercises to watch in astonishment. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my beta, D., for helping me through a sticky plot point.


End file.
